Mutation 9a (+) by William Bosi

William Bosi has done Steve McClure's Mutation in Raven Tor and suggest an upgrade to 9a+. "Wow! So happy to get the first repeat, Steve sent this route two months before I was born so its taken 23 years for the repeat. World-class!" (c) Band of Birds

Mutation has been a long running project for Bosi who opened his account on the line 4 years and 40 sessions ago before finally sending the route late Sunday evening on 31st October. What makes the repeat so remarkable is that the route is at a popular sport climbing destination near Sheffield with a high proportion of strong elite level climbers and has still taken so long to see a repeat, despite attention, which attests to the difficulty of the line.

Will commented on his ascent of Mutation, "Finally! This was by far and away my longest project on a route and I am so happy to clip the chains on it. It is so typical of the redpointing game that the route went down on the last go of the day with little expectation that I would send it! Full credit to Steve McClure on an amazing first ascent and for establishing a climb with such amazing moves.""

McClure commented on the first repeat with, "My first reaction when I got the news was 'Awesome!' I was so psyched for Will that he had finally done Mutation. A few years ago, I was really worried that the route was going to gather dust and not see a repeat so it was great when Will opened his account on it. Obviously, I think he took probably longer than he would have wanted on it but for me, the route is at the absolute limit with no margin for error. You need to have the route dialled, be in great shape and have perfect conditions so I am really happy that it all came together for Will!""

On the subject of the grade, Will commented: "Honestly, I think I lost all concept of the grade on this one about 20 sessions ago! However, I do know it cannot be 9a as the first half of the route is Evolution and gets 8c+. I sent Evolution in three attempts in the middle of July, in contrast to send just the Mutation extension link took me around five days! So in my head the top half has to be at least 8c+ too…? Now 8c+ into 8c+ definitely doesn’t make 9a. Also to note, I reckon I must have sent Evolution hundreds of times by now which makes it even harder to grade, the bottom only takes about a minute to climb through now also! So is Mutation the world's first 9b? Maybe, time will tell with other ascensionists but I think I will go for 9a+ for now…".